A buff Brad Pitt tears up role (and tendon) as Achilles in "Troy'

GO MOVIES

May 13, 2004|By Amy Longsdorf Special to The Morning Call - Freelance

Brad Pitt usually avoids movies that play up his good looks. But not for his latest film. To portray "Troy's" Achilles, the actor turned himself into a tanned specimen of great beauty -- not that he had that far to go.

"It's all part of the process," says the actor, downplaying his transformation, which involved cutting carbs and eating four protein-rich meals a day. "It's really no different than what we all do, ever since DeNiro put on 60 pounds for "Raging Bull.' He kind of set the course for us. He screwed us all, really."

Then Pitt, who turned 40 in December, laughs. "So, yeah, I really hit it hard. It's amazing what an impending mid-life crisis will do for you."

Adopted loosely from "The Iliad," the $200 million epic revisits the Trojan War. The combat begins after Paris of Troy (Orlando Bloom) falls for the famously beautiful Helen (Diane Kruger), who flees with him from her husband, King Menelaus (Brendan Gleeson). The king promptly calls upon the Greek mercenary Achilles to get her back. Once in Troy, Achilles must face off against Paris and his brother, Prince Hector (Eric Bana), in a battle to the death.

It's fitting that Pitt is back in fine fettle for "Troy" because the movie marks his return to name-above-the-title status after a three-year absence. "I really wasn't thinking, "It's time to re-establish myself as a box-office draw,"' says the actor, whose last starring role was in 2001's "Spy Game." "I was exploring other things, like architecture, and I enjoyed that for a while, and then I missed the movies. So now I'm back."

Ironically, Pitt has stepped up his work load just as his wife, Jennifer Aniston, began winding down her decade-long commitment to "Friends."

"Jen's saying goodbye to an era that meant very much to her," notes Pitt. "She's made great friends and had great experiences. So there's the sadness of that, but there's also the excitement of a new era. So we're at that transitional spot, that moment of being at a depot and wondering what direction to go now."

Fatherhood is now a definite possibility. "Yeah, it's time," Pitt says. "I finally think I'm at the place where I won't mess a kid up too much. And Jen's in agreement that I won't mess them up too much."

In his best roles, Pitt embodies Spencer Tracy's famous edict about acting: "Don't ever let 'em catch you at it." He's the type of performer who brings a naturalness to everything he does, whether it's seducing Geena Davis in "Thelma & Louise," riding a horse in "Legends of the Fall," investigating a murder in "Seven" or knocking off a casino in "Ocean's 11."

Very few of his movies see Pitt playing the conventional leading-man roles. "Heroes, I'm really not good with that," he muses. "That's why I liked Achilles. I saw him as extremely human, with an immense talent for fighting. What I was really drawn to was that he sets up this search for more in his life, which is really just a search for some kind of revealing of himself."

"Troy" turned out to be notoriously difficult to shoot. Originally set in Morocco, the then-impending war with Iraq forced the producers to relocate to Mexico, where two hurricanes ripped through the set, and Malta, where Pitt suffered an injury that halted filming for 10 weeks. "In a bout of stupid irony, I tweaked my Achilles' tendon," he says. "Which is bizarre."

Director Wolfgang Petersen says he was surprised at both the technique and sexual swagger Pitt brought to the role.

"Brad actually asked for his nude scene in the movie," says the filmmaker. "And he's an actor who's known for not taking his clothes off. He really wanted to get the physicality of his character on the screen."

Petersen claims that Pitt, instead of trying to expand the role of Achilles, actually asked that his screen time be reduced. "Brad was very keen about cutting his dialogue to a minimum," Petersen reveals. "Normally actors try to get their dialogue to a maximum. They want to talk a lot. But he wanted to talk little, and it helped convey the magic of Achilles."

A MINUTE WITH MARY-KATE

Saturday night, when the rest of the students at Los Angeles' Campbell Hall are enjoying their senior prom, the high school's most famous pupils -- Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen -- will be in the middle of a different kind of celebration.

"We're hosting "Saturday Night Live' that day," says Mary-Kate. "It's the season finale, so it's a great honor that we're invited to be the hosts."

The sisters briefly hoped Campbell Hall might switch the prom date so they could make both events, but, Ashley explains, the administrators at the school "put the thought out of our heads as quickly as it had entered."

The prom aside, the 17-year-old Olsen twins are suddenly everywhere. They have their own Web site, www.mary

kateandashley.com. They have their own Wal-Mart clothing line. And they have their own major motion picture, "New York Minute," co-starring Eugene Levy and Jack Osbourne, which hit theaters last week.